the final countdown

11 more days til we go to denver. we finally got a date, june 10th is his start date. i will TRY to have a computer up there so i can update almost daily with progress. i'm super excited and have very high expectations that i likely need to lower a bit.. very tired of disappointment with his case, but these people work with kids like grayson and way worse than him too. so i really do believe that we will walk away with help and answers. AND FOOD!! his eczema, oddly enough has been worse this month than ever i think. so we couldn't be more ready to go. his body normally looks ok, he has to be covered 24-7, but he has been ok for awhile with flares here and there, but lately it's been way worse. his hands are in wraps up to his elbows for every nap and night time and sometimes all day. one of them is wrapped all the time, while i try and let the other air out, and then i switch them. am i doing it right? who knows? probably not. i feel somedays as if i might in fact lose it and have broken a couple of kitchen utensils in my frustration. its just hard to get anything done because when he knows i'm not looking he has taken his socks off and is bleeding on his legs from scratching so hard in like 30 seconds! this is when fear sets in, fear of staph infection because i'm not doing enough, things like that. and then i start thinking... what if the doctors in denver actually think grayson's case is really weird and we come back with no answers? which is why this whole situation forces me to go back to the cross and remember things like this:

It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. (Deuteronomy 31:8)

or this:

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his son is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. (Psalm 42: 5,8)

or...this:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27)

so clearly God has given me plenty of reasons to not fear and give this to Him. please pray for us to be able to do that fully! man, things could be so much worse. we are so thankful that he is so healthy otherwise.

i've babbled long enough...

and what's a post without a pic?

we went to the zoo with great grandma katie and alyssa and liam the other day. and yes, i see how liam and aislyn are standing. and no, we don't let them look through abercrombie catalogues.

my boys

this was a couple months ago. they looked so precious just sitting there, eating rice cakes. i had to "snap".

my girl and her boy

watering the angel trees with daddy

look at his hair! total fro. and look at her posing. my kids are crazy. oh, and i have a not so great cell phone for taking pics... :)

cavities

this week, we had to take aislyn to the doc, for some wetting her pants issues. the doc had to do a quick exam, which prefaces this story...

aislyn to alyssa:

"alyssa! i went to the dr. and he looked at my pee pee and guess what?! my bottom doesn't have any cavities."

except for that ONE...

our boy

it has definitely been awhile since i've updated on grayson. that's really because there hasn't been much to tell. we stopped trying to add new foods awhile ago, because they all seemed to cause him more eczema and more distress. so we are still with chicken, sweet potatoes and rice, in many different forms. well, ok. not very many different forms. but i try new ways to cook sometimes. my sweet cousin molly beth has a kiddo who can't have many foods because of reflux and she has shared some GREAT recipes with me for something that looked like a pancake, but when baked, kinda looked like a scone. so hey, there's two more things right there. :) i called them cookies and he ate them UP.

we feel as though we have exhausted the dr's here in our town. they are awesome and we love them all, but i think they would likely agree. his case is just weird. SO.. our dr has pushed an approval through with our insurance and we're going to a hospital in denver that has a 2 week day program for allergies and eczema. the thing is... these dr's are noticing that kids like grayson, who test allergic to EVERY SINGLE food they are tested for via blood, are indeed allergic to many foods, but there can be some false positives. but kenny and i can't figure that out on our own. we've tried. there are so many things that exacerbate his eczema, and every time we trial a food, it gets worse. but it could be because he was around a dog that day. or touched a plant. who knows? we certainly don't. so, we will be doing medically supervised food challenges. grayson and i will be admitted into the hospital the first night for surveillance and then the rest of the two weeks, we will be at the clinic from 8 to 5ish and then back to the hotel at night. we are very excited, but i'm getting more and more nervous as it gets closer. i don't want to be away from aislyn that long but she can't come to the hospital with us during the day so i can't really take her. she will be there some though. also, i don't want to get my hopes up, but i do. they told me there is a good chance he will come away with several new foods! can you imagine?! and they will teach me how to treat his eczema effectively when it does flare. i think satan is whispering in my ear "this is all for nothing. it won't work." which is discouraging. so pray against that for me please!

we can use tons of prayers actually. travel, hotel, grayson not to freak out while we're there, etc. he does really good with drs, so hopefully that won't be different. right now, he has torn his arm and hand up so badly that he has been wearing a wrap for several days. he caught a virus last week that caused him to flare and one night he tore his hand up so bad that kenny and i got in the car to take him to the E.R. at 11 o'clock at night. until we remembered that everyone thinks they have swine flu. and we didn't want whatever it was they DID have. so we turned around, and played dr. it's looking better and healing great, but its things like this we would love to avoid!

all that to say, we're very excited and hopeful. please pray with us for MORE NEW FOODS! OH to give my son an apple, or fruit of ANY kind for that matter would bring tears to my eyes. he lives on dum dums and rice bars from trader joe's for snacks at this point! luckily he LOVES them and sees them as a super fun treat still.

thanks for listening to my ramble. hopefully i will have access to the computer when we're there so i can do a play by play day by day! but that is yet to be determined. it will be mid june, but i'm not certain of the date yet.